


Versio Gallicana

by bluestalking



Category: RocknRolla (2008)
Genre: M/M, POV Archy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 20:50:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestalking/pseuds/bluestalking
Summary: These days, Archy played a different game. There was blood on both sides, and it was Archy who wasn’t always sure what would happen. It wasn’t really a game at all.Archy learns about new leadership, while Johnny looks for a very old book.





	Versio Gallicana

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redleather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleather/gifts).



Johnny Quid was trouble. When he was under the influence of “the pipe,” as he hallowed it, he was barely even human. He’d say so himself, and Archy never had much of a mind to contradict him. He’d been down that hole so long that by the time Lenny’d been about to murder Johnny, Archy’d reached the full end of his rope. He probably would’ve let Lenny do it, had circumstances been only slightly different. It was, and was only, Lenny being a traitorous bastard that had made Archy claw back up that rope and take Johnny in hand. 

Misdirection. That’s what Lenny’s betrayal was. Everything always had been, with Len, only Archy was too clever to see it happening to himself.

From several angles, being involved with Johnny in any regard was just as much a mistake as being involved with Lenny, but Archy felt a hell of a lot more comfortable with the new order. Johnny was young, still flexible in his ideas. Johnny said what he meant, to your face. Johnny only sent Archy to do his dirty work when Archy would be significantly scarier to the party in question, and Johnny liked to be hit a lot more than he liked hitting.

Besides, Archy had decided to like him, once scooped up and set on his feet, and Archy, once determined to be loyal, was nigh unmoveable. _Nigh_ and no more, as Lenny had found out. Archy had learned his lesson from all of that business, and one side of an eye was always on Johnny, peering about him for hints of his stepfather or any other unconscionable devil. 

Johnny-cleaned-up was still a wild one, not normal in any sense of the word, and perhaps still likely to stab you as look at you, on nothing more than the breath of a whim. There was some practical use to that, although a little deliberation went a long way in a business like theirs. No, not the business of real estate and bull shit. Oh no, they had their fingers in fresh pies, and while Johnny might stab you, he probably wouldn’t feed you a line. 

He would, however, like to see your art. And today they were on a mission with a particular bent.

“I’m feeling rather holy, my dear Arch,” Johnny had said, looking with his dark, dark eyes at something far off and invisible. Something holy, no doubt. Or something wholly tangible, which he could dress up like the Mother Mary. 

“What d’you mean, Johnny?” Archy said. “Tell us what you’re thinking, then.”

“I mean I’ve taken to reading, and I’ve taken to prayer,” Johnny said precisely. What it all came down to was a twelfth century Psalter, worth certainly no less than two million pounds. 

There was that slim chance that those they knew were not up to the challenge of removing the book from its elderly but well-armed present owner. Johnny, who was no Lenny, was nonetheless shrewd with a bit of a mean streak. So he sent old Archy to feel out the Wild Bunch. You could never know without a proper sounding out, if they’d exceed your expectations and come up like diamonds, or drown themselves, and you, in sheer idiocy.

~

Archy and Handsome Bob met at a slick little bar--not a pub by any means, but one of those new places for faces trying not to get old, yet too old already for the clubs. They served many a mean cocktail, and many a meaner queer. Bob’s choice of rendezvous. Archy supposed it was a bit of a push from Bob’s end--Archy probably deserved it, too, but it was still brave on Bob’s count. Archy, after all, didn’t think Bob had ever been sure whether Archy would fuck him or kill him. 

All a careful balancing act.

It was none of Bob’s fucking business, of course, but Archy thought Bob was angry at him for staying well-sequestered, now that Bob was parading his delicates in public. Out and proud, and all that. It was a pissy little problem, of Bob’s own invention. But the reason Archy could like Bob was that Bob would never have said this out loud. All he’d do was bring Archy to a gay bar, blase and cherub-faced. 

“Hiya, Archy,” Bob said, as Archy took a seat. 

“Bob,” acknowledged Archy. 

“What sweetness have you got for us today, hm?” Bob said. Casual to the ear, hands moving carelessly, but those eyes were flickering watchful. _Don’t worry, Bob, I won’t touch a hair on your head._ (A joke, that.)

“A literary sort,” said Archy. “How do you feel about books?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything about books,” Bob said thoughtfully. “I can read one, if you ask me.”

“You might have trouble with this one, mate,” Archy said. “It’s in medieval Latin.”

Bob’s eyebrows ascended. 

“Sounds delicious,” he said, “if you were a vicar. What for, Arch--” Quick widening of the eyes, a man, too comfortable, catching his mistake. “Archy, sir?”

“None of your business why,” Archy said. “You just listen to what I say, and tell me if you can get it.”

Bob nodded slowly.

Archy explained the job in broad details. Bob listened intently, twirling his glass of neon-colored poison by the stem all the while. Archy watched condensation roll down the outside of the glass and didn’t let himself be distracted. If there was one thing Archy was good at (and there were many things), it was a surgical cutting-out of unnecessaries. No water, no sweat, no tears squeezed out between gasps anymore. Just business, and a flat horizon of no regret.

These days, Archy played a different game. There was blood on both sides, and it was Archy who wasn’t always sure what would happen. It wasn’t really a game at all.

When he’d finished his brief, Bob nodded. “A bit of Robin Hood, innit?” he said. “Steal from the rich to give to your boss.”

“Not sure that’s what Robin Hood is, Bob,” said Archy.

“Ah, well,” said Bob carelessly. “Sure, we can do it. I mean, I’ll talk it over with the boys. But they shouldn’t have a problem. We’ve done worse.”

“Good,” Archy said. He shook out a cigarette, then put it away again. “You won’t have any--personal issues, that will come fucking this up?”

“You mean with me and One Two?” Bob said with a laugh. “No, I shouldn’t think so.”

Archy wasn’t sure if that meant they were fucking or not. And the sordid affairs of the hired hands didn’t matter, either (even if Archy had nearly a soft spot for Bob), except insofar as they affected Archy’s plans.

“As long as you’re playing together nicely,” he said.

“Oh, we’re playing very nicely,” Bob said, with the deep purr in his voice that he’d rarely dared with Archy. It was a very different thing, of course, him and Archy, a brittle camaraderie that came in stifled moans and then beat a hasty retreat until next called for. None of this domestic shit.

“Felicitations,” Archy said, a concession to human behaviour. “I expect you’re happy.”

“Yeah, and I will be,” Bob said. 

“How’s that?” 

“This girl Stella,” Bob said. He waved a hand. “Y’see, when a lady you were seeing comes back from the dead, very well off in an unattainable location, and she is just as beautiful as ever--so I’m told--it turns a man’s head.”

“I see,” said Archy.

“I’ll turn it back,” Bob said. “He’s just a bit worried. Shouldn’t be, she’s got at least three cats of lives. Sorry, Arch...y, I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all that.”

“Well, just keep it in your trousers on the job,” Archy said.

Bob’s mild expression told Archy he was offended. But Bob would never whisper a word of that.

“Go call your mates,” Archy ordered him. Bob slipped out of his seat and went off to a corner, to mutter crimes into his mobile. Maybe sweet-talk his way into an agreement. Archy let himself relax. Mumbles would take any job, and if Bob thought One Two would do what he asked, rather than balk at working with a man trying to get him into bed, Archy had no reason to doubt it. 

When the deal was set, Bob ordered another drink and tipped it at Archy. Archy ordered nothing, paid the tab, and went to fill Johnny in.

“Very game, they are,” Johnny said, pulling him in by the waist of his trousers. “And one hopes they are good for it. One just never does know. Not like you; you’re never game, but you’re always good for it.”

That was a rude way of putting things, and not accurate at all, but nothing Archy did next could put a lie to it.

~

It took a week to plan, which wasn’t really so long. Johnny’s schemes had spanned months on more than one occasion. He had the oil painter’s ability to back off and wait for each spot of color to dry, and a touch of Lenny’s magic--but he was in a bit of a mood, and the planning wasn’t fully in his control. How he did hate to put other people in charge of moving about his valuables. 

“It’s not even yours, yet,” Archy reminded him, standing by the closed door of Johnny’s office.

“Ah, but spiritually,” Johnny said, slouching back in the thronelike armchair that graced one side of his dramatically lit office. 

It smelled clean, this office, the kind of clean of someone who didn’t allow staff inside, but also never touched crack, nor any lesser offender. It smelled like a meticulous and scrupulous Johnny Quid, which was to say a little syrupy and dusty and scrubbed for prints. And there was a hint of spice, if you got close enough.

“Spiritually, Uncle Arch,” said Johnny, “it’s no one else’s but mine.”

Archy shifted uncomfortably at the name, and Johnny chuckled with a shake of his head.

“Worried about fucking your nephew, Archy?” he said

Archy said, “I never worry,” which was a gamble and a sham and it made Johnny laugh out loud. 

“Come here,” he said, with laughter still kicking in his throat like an animal out of the gutter. Archy raised his eyebrows and didn’t move. Johnny, all at once very still and shadowed, repeated himself. “Archy: come here.”

Archy moved from one side of the office to the other, joint by joint, standing above Johnny like a wooden soldier with Johnny gazing back up at him with a lazy affect and a stone cold eye.

“I should love to order you about,” Johnny said. “Except that it makes you so miserable. You still chafe a bit under the new leadership, don’t you, Arch?”

“On the contrary,” said Archy. “I know who I signed on for.”

“Darling,” said Johnny. He stuck out a leg and hooked it behind Archy’s knees, gave him a yank forward. Archy didn’t stumble, but he did oblige. Archy was obliging, when given the opportunity.

Johnny said, “You know. I said to you come here and you still haven’t.”

“Ah,” said Archy. He put one hand on the arm of Johnny’s chair and leaned in. 

He had a moment to decide if he was going to hold himself back, just enough that Johnny had to stretch for it. But Johnny thumped his heel against the back of Archy’s knee, Archy fell forward, and their teeth collided. Archy got half a _fu--_ out of his mouth before Johnny was on him, lips, claws, and muscle, and then it was all in. Hands tearing at buttons, knees hitting the floor, Johnny’s fist tight in Archy’s hair as he hissed, “Fuck fuck _fuck_ , Archy, wake up and touch me or I’ll murder you.”

Archy wasn’t worried that he would. 

“All right, John,” he murmured amiably, and pinned him face down on the floor. 

“Monster,” said Johnny, strangled and struggling. “A proper monster, exactly the one they told me about as a little kid to give me scary nightmares. Help, it’s got me!”

“There, there,” Archy said. But he roughed Johnny up exactly as desired, until Johnny was screaming, his back rubbed raw on the carpet of his very fine office.

~

Mumbles, Bob, One Two. 

“All looking very much worse for the wear,” Archy remarked. “I hope you haven’t brought me here to disappoint me.”

One Two, looking Scottish murder, dug into his satchel, brought out something wrapped up, and presented it roughly.

“Careful now,” Archy said. “If that’s what I want it to be, you don’t want to be dogging any pages.”

“We haven’t let it come to harm,” Bob said. He seemed to have come out of things better than the other two, but still rather badly for a getaway driver. Mumbles, meanwhile, had one eye swollen across the diameter of a fried egg, with a split brow above it. One Two was a surly green and blue.

Archy raised an eyebrow.

“He had a very fine collection of antique cricket bats,” Mumbles explained.

“It in’t right for a man to have more than one interest,” growled One Two. “Ought to’ve stuck to books.”

Bob patted his hand, absentminded, and One Two looked dourly into the middle distance.

“Shall we see, then?” Archy said. He took the package, checked it. Well. That was a nice thing, if such things were in your line. 

He dug into his pocket and handed Mumbles an envelope, because they did still do some things in the old-fashioned way, with old-fashioned mugs like these.

“Cheers, boys,” he said, and stood up from the booth with the book in hand. 

~

Johnny knelt on the floor with the book open in his hands, cradled careful as a baby bird whose spine you didn’t want to crack. It looked a lot like prayer and a lot like drugs. Archy considered that it might be partway to both, while exactly like neither. Johnny’d been down there twenty minutes, staring at just one page. The gold traced and pooled a border around tight script, laced with colors so think and rich that even Archy—not a romantic—could taste them. 

Probably better not too. Probably they were toxic. 

“Is it what you wanted, then?” Archy asked. “Good enough for your museum?”

“No, I think I’ll tuck it under my pillow,” said Johnny snidely. He slowly unbent, until his head turned up and he was piercing Archy with eyes as deep as the colors. 

“Seems risky,” Archy says. “Aren’t you worried a little gang of queers will rob it from you in your sleep?”

Johnny shook his head, as an alternate to shaking a finger with his hands full. 

“Now, now, Arch,” he said. “You know Mr. Mumbles is no fag. Unlike the rest of us.”

Archy dismissed that with a grunt.

“Who do you think you’re fooling, Archy? Yourself? You can have no reasonable expectation of fooling me.”

“That’s neither here nor there,” said Archy.

“I know exactly where it is,” Johnny said. His head dropped, and he sighed. “It’s exactly what I wanted, yes. I feel like a better, more complete person, holding this. It’s holy, you see. It holds a key to a man’s very soul.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Archy said amiably. Johnny sighed again, quite a different tone, and shut the book, setting it gently on the floor. 

“Where is your heart, Archy?” he asked. “What must I do to drag it out into the open?”

Archy had no quick answer to that. It caught him unawares.

“And what good would I be to you with a heart?” he said jokingly. 

Johnny traced the shedding leather binding of the book with light, unshaking fingers. “Here is what I am not, Arch,” he said. “I am _not_ Lenny Cole.” Fingers moving, soft as anything.

Archy stood silently for a minute. He took a seat, fingers splayed, feet planted.

“Well, John,” he said, “I could have told you that.”

“That’s what I like about you,” Johnny said. “You’ve got that insight.”

Archy watched him. Johnny turned pages, each like a gift.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear redleather: AS IT TURNS OUT, WE DID MATCH ON THIS. I was really torn between writing RocknRolla and Tinker Tailor (which is another movie I watch with obsessive repetition), but this request was so perfect I had to go this route. I hope you like the result--I really loved writing it and it definitely makes me want to go back and write more for this fandom in the future! Happy Yuletide to you. :)


End file.
